Unverified Voracity Says Happy Trails

There's no simple explanation for anything important any of us do. Rob Parker has been fired, and a nation says "what took so long?"

I actually met Parker once. One of the producers at WDIV's Sports Final Edition liked the blog and wanted to maybe have me on for a weekly segment that would break down a play or two in an attempt to explain why Michigan had won on Saturday and why State had lost. (Ah, the hubris of 2006.)

The segment never happened, but I did head down to the studio to do a test run. Said test run coincided with Parker's weekly segment. Like everyone else who's read a Parker column, I didn't think much of him, but he seemed like an exceptionally nice guy. Maybe he's not that bad, I thought.

Fifteen minutes later I was watching him declare that his "moles" were saying Mario Manningham would be suspended for the entire 2007 season, and all that went away. I actually had some killer inside info on the situation and knew that Manningham had been in the car when a traffic stop turned up some marijuana and vicodin. At worst Manningham would get a possession rap; as it turned out he was charged with absolutely nothing. Parker was taking a shred of a rumor and intentionally blowing it up into something sensational.

It's not like this was unusual. Parker's moles are a running joke around Detroit. Earlier this year he incorrectly identified State quarterback Kirk Cousins as a participant in the melee that laid up Spartan hockey player AJ Sturges. Dantonio duly blew up and, for once, it was justified. Parker has a track record.

So, congratulations, Detroit News. It only took you years of inane columns, weekly bouts of irresponsible, inaccurate rumormongering, and one jerk move at a press conference to get rid of Rob Parker. The courage overwhelms.

We build. We build. We build we build we build. Michigan's construction boom is such that the New York Times mentions it:

An army of ironworkers, masons, carpenters and laborers are swarming the campus of the University of Michigan these days, as the university undertakes a construction campaign budgeted at $2.5 billion, ranking it among the largest university building programs in the United States.

A dossier of projects follow: the biomedical center, the Ford School, the new business school, North Quad, and, yes, the stadium renovation. In context, the rumors of faculty OUTRAGE that Michigan was spending all of 10% of their construction campaign on a self-funding, overdue revamp of the football stadium seem a little silly, don't they?

A side note: that link comes courtesy the Ann Arbor Chronicle, a budding, professional, and transparent online news source that's an interesting look at what might pass for a local paper in a post-newspaper world. They've got some crowdsourcing going on—a twitter feed that aggregates readers' information about local traffic issues—a fairly robust set of local advertisers, and interesting content. Like, hey, did you know the TCF bank building on South U has the word "tit"—rumored to be a tribute to Michigan coeds—bricked into it?

Recursive hockey recruiting. Yost Built linked to the hockey recruiting bit from Friday and in doing so posted something I'll link here, which may break the internet. We'll see. The item is on the chances of forward commit Luke Moffatt donning the winged helmet, and it's nice:

The Kelowna Daily Courier had an article about some of the Kelowna Rockets prospects who are playing in the World Under 17s at the moment. If you'll recall, Luke Moffatt was drafted by the Rockets in the WHL Draft. Their Assistant GM said that this is as good of a US team as he's ever seen in that tournament. He's very complimentary of Moffatt, though he says it's a wait and see thing on if he'll end up in Kelowna.

I recently received a very positive email about the chances of him ending up in Maize and Blue. Things can change, but right now I'm not starting a Luke Moffatt DEFCON like I did with Jack Johnson. I like the odds of him ending up in a Michigan jersey.

Ver' nice. Insert disclaimer with mention of Jared Knight, an erstwhile Michigan commit now plying his trade in the OHL, here.

Come on. A message boarder pointed out this in Rosenberg's delicious fluffy num-num on Michigan State's Citrus loss. State has a fourth and five from Georgia's 39 and calls for a fake punt:

MSU coaches had studied Georgia film intently — 12 games’ worth of film in the interminable wait for the bowl. They knew the Bulldogs always spread their defense against a punt. Naturally, the coaches figured they could fake a punt and run up the middle for a first down.

And what happened when the Spartans lined up?

Georgia’s defense was bunched up in the middle of the field. The Bulldogs had apparently used their interminable wait for a bowl to tinker with their punt defense. Maddening.

Maddening! Except this is a punt on fourth-and-makeable from the opponent's 39. Every program in the country is in a punt safe there; Dantonio's fooling no one. It was an idiotic call and punished appropriately. Then, later, Dantonio punts on fourth and one from the Georgia 44. People keep falling all over themselves to praise Dantonio even when he displays a grasp of game theory Nixian in its incompetence.

I am annoyed, and unsurprised.

Very cool. UMHoops now has a man on the scene in Los Angeles, and said man has a video camera and the intent to scout Darius Morris. Dylan says "this isn’t exactly a highlight film," which it's not. It's actually more useful. Highlight films are just "this guy hit a three this guy hit a shot this guy hit a shot ooh dunk"; only Zack Gibson does nothing but put dunk on your face.*

Oops. ESPN's having a bunch of people make random predictions, because random predictions are incredibly valuable content. This one is particularly valuable:

4. Combined with 2008 QB signee Justin Feagin, the Michigan Wolverines will play two true freshmen in a QB rotation until one comes to the forefront and takes the reigns of Rich Rodriguez's spread offense. Shavodrick Beaver (Wichita Falls, Texas/Rider) and Tate Forcier (San Diego/Scripps Ranch) will battle with Feagin.

Tate Forcier is apparently a slot receiver at Tulsa now. (Update: the Beaver mention has been excised.)

*(HT: Club Trillion, which is the only good thing to come out of Ohio State ever.)